so the surface salt is going back into the brine clay and being pump out, wow, you really don't know alot about the salt flats.
Model simulations, in which the
1992 rate of withdrawal from the
brine-collection ditch east of the salt
crust and average climatic conditions
were used,
indicate that brine
withdrawal is a major cause of salt
loss from the crust. Other than the
cycling of fluid and solute through the
playa surface each year, subsurface
brine flow and solute transport to the
brine-collection ditches east and south
of the salt crust are the largest
contributors to salt removal from the
shallow-brine aquifer. Model
simulations do not account for the
occasional loss of salt from the crust
by extensive flooding described
previously.
In English - Water is moving salt from one place to another. It does this by dissolving salt into a solution and uses natural water flow to transport the salt. Water that is already saturated will not pickup more salt. Water that falls as rain can dissolve the most salt as it likely has very low amounts of dissolved salt in solution. Water that is mechanically pumped cannot contain the maximum saturation level of salt because the mechanical action lowers the saturation point of the solution.
Therefore, fresh and pumped water onto the salt surface dissolves salt. Proof of this is that the mining companies use a brine solution to move what they are mining from point A to point B. The aquifer under the flats is a brine aquifer, that means it has salt in it.
How do you think that salt got there? You think the ocean flows under the lake bed?
The water that falls or is pumped onto the racing surface dissolves the salt and moves it into the aquifer either through collection ditches or through natural leeching into the soil. This is not rocket surgery, sorcery or witchcraft but rather basic 8th grade natural science.
